Nepal Agricultural Market Development Programme (NAMDP), branded as Sahaj, is a bilateral initiative between the Government of Switzerland and the Government of Nepal. Swisscontact and CEAPRED jointly implement Sahaj-NAMDP, mandated by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Sahaj is designed as an ‘Inclusive Markets programme under SDC’s Nepal Agriculture Growth Initiative (NAGI). Sahaj aims to sustainably improve livelihoods of rural smallholders, including disadvantaged groups and women-headed households, through their participation in commercial agriculture and ‘interconnected markets’.

Sahaj-NAMDP and Mero Agro had a partnership on July 2017 for action based scoping in Surkhet and Dailekh to design interventions that will help smallholder farmers reduce crop loss through correct use of crop protection inputs. The objective of the scoping was to acquire information on farmers need for crop protection inputs and its market potential. After the scoping, the company realised that there is market potential for promotion and sales of crop protection inputs in the districts. The scoping also helped the company to develop a model to reach smallholder farmers including that of the hilly region of different part of the country. Mero Agro is interested in expanding its coverage and provide information on usage and benefits of crop protection inputs to farmers (both commercial and small) and agro-vets in different districts of eastern as well as the western region of Nepal.